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2008-2009 Petition to stop software patents in Europe

Posted by fki on Tuesday, 23 December 2008

We have signed the Stop Software Patents .eu petition to support their view on serious restrains current software patent legislations cause. "The patent system is misused to restrain competition for the economical benefit of a few but fails to promote innovation. A software market environment is better off with no patents on software at all. Healthy competition forces market players to innovate," they write in the petition, "European court decisions still accept in many cases the validity of the software patents granted by national patent offices and the European Patent Office (EPO) that is beyond democratic control. They not only continue to grant them, but also to lobby in favor of them. Despite the current deep crisis of the patent system, they are unable to reform and put at risk too many European businesses with their soft granting policy."

They also have a list of examples of granted software patents in Europe, including patents on webshops, patents to ship items to the correct pick-up point of the used delivery service, and on copyright protection.